


Letter to the Editor

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ankh-Morpork, F/M, Gen, Journalism, Women Being Awesome, pairings are incidental
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 22:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9681776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Tiffany, Susan, and a free press.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WerepuppyBlack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WerepuppyBlack/gifts).



> Written for fandom_stocking 2016.

Tiffany Aching goes to the city as infrequently as possible, because even the greatest witch has trouble leaving the Nac Mac Feegle behind, and Tiffany does not enjoy the chaos they brew up in Ankh-Morpork. But Tiffany does sometimes go to the city, and the Times takes a picture of her in her swirling black dress and little gold necklace on the steps of the Patrician's Palace and puts it in the social column, calls her the queen of the witches.

 

Tiffany writes a letter by way of correction which is - Susan doesn't know how she arranges this - of precisely the same size and prominence as the original, offending passage.

 

 _Witches don't have queens_ , she writes. _Calling me a queen is an insult to every witch, living and dead. I am only a voice._

The Times refers thereafter to Tiffany Aching (Miss), senior witch, along with a series of increasingly wild guesses at her age. Tiffany is only eighteen, but nobody wants to believe that.

 

"You would not believe the trouble I had, stopping them from printing pieces about the teaching duchess," Susan says, meeting Tiffany outside the hospital where her Preston works. "How did you do it?"

 

"Miss Cripslock and I had a chat," Tiffany says. Her brown eyes are as straightforward and opaque as ever. "I found her quite reasonable. And I was able to help with some of her pain."

 

Susan gives a slight intake of breath.

 

"She will get better," Tiffany added. "It's not that sort of pain." Tiffany hitches a sturdy canvas satchel higher on her shoulder; it is embroidered with her initials and waxed against poor weather. "I said I'd go round the houses with Long Tall Short Fat Sally, if you want to come."

 

Susan knows a little of all the witches in Ankh-Morpork. Long Tall Short Fat Sally is tidal, for reasons which have never been adequately explained, and is drawn to the waterfront for reasons she has never adequately explained, so that's where they'll go. Susan doesn't much like the Ankh-Morpork districts down by the water; they smell violently of fish and desperation, or of the furious effort and cold hearts needed to keep either of the previous smells away. Susan dislikes the latter more, though, and she knows she won't smell them where Tiffany plans to go.

 

"Why not?" Susan says. She has never seen a witch's care from this perspective, although she has been beaten hollow by several witches fighting to save the kind of patients they see on these rounds. Tiffany Aching plays a mean game of Cripple Mister Onion.

 

They spend an afternoon going round the houses. Tiffany is at her best with the children, with the elderly, and - curiously - with the Watch. There are some who join the Watch for the steady money, Susan knows, but the ones who stay understand the value of hard work that needs doing as well as any witch, and know the loneliness of doing that hard work well. These are Tiffany's natural allies, on the days when she's managed to leave the Nac Mac Feegle at home.

 

They also know the streets as well as Long Tall Short Fat Sally, if from a very different perspective. Susan watches witches and Watch exchange information, carefully, always keeping something back.

 

At the end of the afternoon Tiffany and Susan scrub their hands clean in hot water and look at each other. Long Tall Short Fat Sally has gone down to the water to lie on a jetty because there's a spring tide due and it's making her feel out of sorts.

 

"Coffee?" Susan asks.

 

"I'd like that," Tiffany says, straight-backed and mannerly.

 

She doesn't hold herself like a queen, Susan thinks, and Sacharissa Cripslock would know that if she'd met more queens. Tiffany holds herself like someone no queen would dare to give an order to, and that, Susan knows, is rarer and stranger than any royal.

 

_Miss Tiffany Aching (24), senior witch, and her Grace the Duchess of Sto Helit, take tea in an up-and-coming new coffee-house._

 

"It was coffee," Susan tells Lobsang with a sigh, closing the next day's Times. "Very bad coffee. They practically had to scrape it off the bottom of the pot. And it's that place next to the Mended Drum; if the Times sends their delicate readers there they'll all get mugged."

 

"Write to the Times and tell them not to be stupid," Lobsang suggests, with touching naïveté.

 

"That would be counterproductive," Susan says.

 

She cuts out the column and posts it to Tiffany.

 


End file.
